Bringing Down The House

The #1 national bestseller, now a major motion picture, 21—the amazing inside story about a gambling ring of M.I.T. students who beat the system in Vegas—and lived to tell how. Robin Hood meets the Rat Pack when the best and the brightest of M.I.T.’s math students and engineers take up blackjack under the guidance of an eccentric mastermind. Their small blackjack club develops from an experiment in counting cards on M.I.T.’s campus into a ring of card savants with a system for playing large and winning big. In less than two years they take some of the world’s most sophisticated casinos for more than three million dollars. But their success also brings with it the formidable ire of casino owners and launches them into the seedy underworld of corporate Vegas with its private investigators and other violent heavies.

Cheating in casinos is illegal: card-counting - making a record of what cards have so far been dealt to enable the player to make some prediction of what cards remain in the deck - is not. This book tells the true story a successful scam, in which teams of young mathematicians and physicists won millions of dollars from the casinos of Las Vegas.

Recounts the story of how a notorious gang of MIT blackjack savants devised and received backing for a system for winning at the world's most sophisticated casinos, an endeavor that earned them more than three million dollars.

David Profumo was just seven when his father, who had been Secretary of State for War, resigned from the Macmillan government. Despite the furore and humiliation that followed, his parents famously stayed together - and now, forty years on, their son has written this long-awaited account of their family life before, during and after the sensational events of 1963. Drawing on diaries, letters and other memorabilia never before made public, Bringing The House Down describes their background and careers before they met. After an apprenticeship in Hollywood during her teenage years, the beautiful Valerie Hobson went on to star in numerous British films before her stage triumph in 'The King and I'; John Profumo had been the youngest MP during the Second World War, became a Brigadier at the age of thirty, and was rapidly rising through the ranks of the Conservative party. This is the story of their complicated courtship and volatile marriage, the destruction of their glamorous lifestyle and their endurance of the aftermath. By turns intimate, caustic and poignant, their only child's personal memoir of their three lives together not only puts flesh on the bones of the old family skeleton but also offers a remarkable portrait of a love affair that somehow survived in a world turned upside down.

Recounts the story of how a notorious gang of MIT blackjack savants devised and received backing for a system for winning at the world's most sophisticated casinos, an endeavor that earned them more than three million dollars.

Between 1979 and 1997, a quarter of Britain’s regional theaters closed their doors forever. Those that survived found themselves constantly on the brink, forced to radically reduce their programs and shut down for extended periods. Bringing Down the House examines how and why this crisis occurred, from the British government’s scant regard for the arts after World War II to the onset of Thatcherism and its long-lasting effects on the theater industry. This timely read for theater and cultural history scholars unearths a catalog of recurring problems that ensured the fragility of the British regional stage.

They should be a disaster in the making. Good thing they don’t believe in words like “should.” Nicole People think I’m crazy…especially my ex-boyfriends. I prefer the term misunderstood. Still, there’s no denying I have a stunning ability to make bad decisions…like seducing the lead actor of the theater company where I just accepted a job. An HR job. In my defense, Damien Mitchell is the most gorgeous man alive, and worse, he’s interesting. Besides, I’m ninety percent sure my new boss is up to something shady. Why should I behave if she won’t? I fully intend to find out what she’s doing, but in the meantime I’m reeled in by Damien. The thing is, it turns out he isn’t just a fantastic actor at a crappy theater. He's— Well, it’s his secret. But I promise it's a good one. I’m going to help him with that and with saving the theater. Whether he wants me to or not. *** Damien I’m the only child of two rich narcissists. I’m used to being alone. I like it. But Nicole’s not the kind of woman who can be kept at a distance, and to my surprise, I don’t want to stay away. She sets my blood on fire and pisses me off…and makes me feel alive in a way I’d previously only experienced onstage. I tell her my secrets. I show her my scars. I let her in. We’re both screwed up, so there’s every chance we’ll destroy each other, but she’s not the only one who’s prone to bad decisions. A full-length standalone prequel to the Bad Luck Club series!

For freedom to have a meaning, it must come through the sacrifice of the people. It is on this notion that the book narrates the journey of Nigeria and its people from the colonial perspective; it highlights contemporary realities with critical thoughts and gives an in-depth understanding of power politics. The book is a thorough work on Nigeria's historical and political evolution since the inception of its self-rule, with special appraisal on its political leaders. It provides insight on how Nigeria can be re-shaped by a new definition of power. The author argues persuasively, the road that should be taken by the people of Nigeria, in restoring the meaning of citizenship.